Now would probably be the best time to review the cricket of the last two weeks, praise the Bangladesh team, feel happy for the journeymen players from Ireland and rant about the bad performance of the sub-continenet’s giants. Each of these has been done to death. My own views on the Irish and Bangladesh teams: I still think Ireland and Bangladesh in the next round means that there will be extra pressure on the teams to max these two and margin for error in the remaining matches is minimal. Also, the quality of cricket will suffer irrespective of what Whatmore might think/say.

I digressed completely. Ah yes, the first match of the Super8s: Australia vs WI. A mouth-watering clash. Australia came into the tournament with a few things to prove. While they did beat SA comfortably, there was a period during the match when SA was cruising - before Kallis won it for the Aussies. The batting looks strong- it always did. The bowling still looks iffy to me. They don’t seem to be able to contain aggressive batsmen. And in the last few matches against the Windies, they have won the finals of

tournaments and lost the league games- A cause for worry? The West Indian team also has come through without any losses and they are looking like a settled unit to me. Not as experienced as the Aussies maybe, but they are well versed with the local conditions. Their batting is not as strong as the Aussies’ perhaps: let’s see current form Hayden and Gilchrist are better, Ponting better, Clarke better (marginally only). But the bowling, that’s the key: The West Indians don’t have world beaters but their bowling is nagging, effective and with Gayle and Samuels turning their arms over, has variety. Australian bowling has variety only in the form of Hogg- I don’t think Lara is worried! and I am not sure if Symonds will be bowling too much.

On paper Australia look favorites but it will be a question of whether the West Indian bowlers can restrict the free flowing Aussie line-up. If they can and they bat decently, they should win. As is always the case when playing the Aussies, you need to bat, bowl and field well to win. In this case the bowling is especially important as the batting is capable of handling the likes of Tait and Hogg.

My prediction: Australia wins.

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